Examiner Code of Conduct
The following Code of Conduct has been issued by the Faculty Board of Biology, with the approval of Examiners, and is intended to ensure an even playing field for all students and to prevent any group being given an unfair advantage through access to confidential information.
Ideally, examiners and assessors should not supervise after the Tripos papers have been set. Examiners and assessor who do continue to supervise:
- Should not suggest specific essay titles to their students but let them choose freely from other sources (e.g. past Tripos papers);
- Should not set mock examinations or tests unless they have been written before the Tripos questions are agreed;
- Should be on their guard against advising students to revise specific topics, or of giving leading answers to student inquiries;
- Should not give revision supervisions (unless asked, without prompting, by their students) on the specific topics that have been set in the Tripos papers;
- Should guard against influencing the examiners to accept as Tripos questions, specific essay titles they have set earlier in the year as supervision work, and should say at the examiners' meeting if such a question is proposed;
- Should act with the utmost probity and to the highest professional standards in not leaking questions, offering advice on the probable, specific content of an examination paper, or dropping hints that might assist or mislead examination candidates.